Determining system level dependencies

• US 8,959,481 B2
• Filed: 04/30/2009
• Issued: 02/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gangopadhyay, Dipayan, Gupta, Manish, Sethi, Manish, Anand, Ashok
• Primary Examiner(s): Bullock, Jr., Lewis A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Huynh, Tina
• Application Number:
  US12/432,929
• Publication Number:
  US 20100281455A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,119 Days
• Field of Search: 717102-105, 717168-178
• US Class Current: 717/121
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/24 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/35 model driven
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment

Abstract

Techniques for co-relating at least one of a functional design and at least one implementation artifact of a solution with at least one infrastructure component of a target deployment environment for the solution are provided. The techniques include obtaining at least one of a functional design and at least one implementation artifact of a solution, obtaining at least one infrastructure component of a target deployment environment for the solution, and co-relating at least one of a functional design and at least one implementation artifact of a solution with at least one infrastructure component of a target deployment environment for the solution, wherein co-relating comprises discovering at least one system level dependency among the at least one of a functional design and at least one implementation artifact and the at least one infrastructure component.

Claims

1. A method for co-relating multiple functional designs and multiple implementation artifacts of multiple applications with multiple infrastructure components of a target deployment environment for the applications, comprising the steps of:

obtaining the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts of the multiple applications, said obtaining carried out via a module executing on a hardware processor;

obtaining the multiple infrastructure components of the target deployment environment for the multiple applications, said obtaining carried out via a module executing on the hardware processor;

co-relating the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts of the multiple applications with the multiple infrastructure components of the target deployment environment for the multiple applications, said co-relating carried out via a module executing on the hardware processor, and wherein co-relating comprises;

(i) automatically discovering multiple system level dependencies among the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, and

(ii) providing one or more placement directives for deploying the multiple implementation artifacts on the target deployment environment;

generating a multi-layer graph on-demand based on said multiple system level dependencies among the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, wherein nodes of the multi-layered graph comprise the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, wherein edges of the multiple layered graph comprise the multiple system level dependencies, and wherein said generating comprises incrementally creating, on-demand, the multi-layered graph by resolving one or more queries and fetching one or more items of desired data related to the one or more queries at run-time;

providing at least one stitching relationship among the multiple functional designs, the multiple implementation artifacts, and the multiple infrastructure components;

processing at least one submitted query by using information from multiple meta-models by traversing the at least one stitching relationship to decompose at the least one submitted query into at least one sub-query on appropriate models; and

directing the at least one sub-query to at least one respective model via at least one source connector to retrieve information from at least one actual source.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising answering a query of at least one run-time implication of a design in terms of at least one potential resource consumed by at least one operation of a designed artifact.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising answering a query of at least one enterprise implication of at least one infrastructure observation.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising answering a query of at least one enterprise implication of at least one issue comprising at least one of an exception, a monitored event and a failure.

5. A system for co-relating multiple functional designs and multiple implementation artifacts of multiple applications with multiple infrastructure components of a target deployment environment for the applications, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory;

multiple source connectors, wherein each source connector imports at least one respective model from a source and wherein the source is at least one of a design tool, a file system and an infrastructure component, said multiple source connectors executing on the processor;

multiple meta-models, wherein each meta-model captures semantics of a corresponding model in terms of at least one of entity type, relationship type and behavior of a given kind of model, said multiple meta-models executing on the processor;

at least one stitching relationship among at least one element of the multiple meta-models that describe at least one relationship among a set of multiple meta-model elements from the multiple meta-models that are semantically related; and

a synthesizer that

(i) integrates multiple input models comprising at least one or more placement directives for deploying the multiple implementation artifacts on the target deployment environment;

(ii) generates a multi-layered graph on-demand based on said multiple input models, wherein nodes of the multi-layered graph comprise model elements of said multiple input models, wherein edges of the multi-layered graph comprise relations between the model element, and wherein said generating comprises incrementally creating, on-demand, the multi-layered graph by resolving one or more queries and fetching one or more items of desired data related to the one or more queries at run-time, said synthesizer executing on the processor;

(iii) processes at least one submitted query by using information from the multiple meta-models by traversing the at least one stitching relationship to decompose at the least one submitted query into at least one sub-query on appropriate models; and

(iv) directs the at least one sub-query to at least one respective model via the at least one of the multiple source connectors to retrieve information from at least one actual source.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein at least one new meta-model is added to the system and related to the multiple meta-models by adding at least one appropriate stitching relationship.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the multiple input models comprise at least one of at least one functional design and implementation artifact, and a model of at least one property and contents of at least one component of the target infrastructure.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein each model comprises at least one specific entity and relationships describing at least one of structure and behavior of at least one of at least one functional design artifact, a target infrastructure component, and at least one placement directive.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein the multiple meta-models comprises:

multiple meta-models of at least one structure and behavior of typical development artifact in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) system.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the multiple meta-models of the at least one structure and behavior of typical development artifact in the SOA system comprise at least one of at least one definition of a business process execution language (BPEL) process, at least one web service and at least one implementation artifact of the at least one web service.

11. The system of claim 5, wherein the multiple meta-models comprises:

multiple meta-models of at least one structure and behavior of infrastructure component.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the multiple meta-models of the at least one structure and behavior of infrastructure component comprise at least one of a process server, a web container and a managed object container in an application server.

13. The system of claim 5, wherein the multiple meta-models comprises:

multiple meta-models of at least one structure and behavior of management facility for at least one infrastructure component and at least one functional component, wherein each meta-model describes at least one of structure and behavior of at least one model admitted by the meta-model.

14. The system of claim 5, wherein semantics of the at least one stitching relationship and semantics of at least one relationship used in the multiple meta-models are at least one of expressed in an executable rules language and interpreted by at least one suitable forward and backward-chaining traversal algorithm implemented in a conventional programming language.

15. The system of claim 5, wherein the synthesizer comprises a rules execution engine to interpret and reason with at least one rule to implement query decomposition processing.

16. The system of claim 5, wherein the multiple meta-models and the at least one stitching relationship are translated into at least one rule in an executable rules language.

17. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory tangible computer readable recordable storage medium including computer useable program code for co-relating multiple functional designs and multiple implementation artifacts of multiple applications with multiple infrastructure components of a target deployment environment for the applications, wherein the computer useable program code comprises one or more distinct software modules, the computer program product including:

the computer useable program code for obtaining the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts of the multiple applications;

the computer useable program code for obtaining the multiple infrastructure components of the target deployment environment for the multiple applications;

the computer useable program code for co-relating the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts of the multiple applications with the multiple infrastructure components of the target deployment environment for the multiple applications, wherein said co-relating comprises;

(i) automatically discovering multiple system level dependencies among the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, and

(ii) providing one or more placement directives for deploying the multiple implementation artifacts on the target deployment environment;

the computer useable program code for generating a multi-layer graph on-demand based on said multiple system level dependencies among the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, wherein nodes of the multi-layered graph comprise the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, wherein edges of the multiple layered graph comprise the multiple system level dependencies, and wherein said generating comprises incrementally creating, on-demand, the multi-layered graph by resolving one or more queries and fetching one or more items of desired data related to the one or more queries at run-time;

the computer useable program code for providing at least one stitching relationship among the multiple functional designs, the multiple implementation artifacts, and the multiple infrastructure components;

the computer useable program code for processing at least one submitted query by using information from multiple meta-models by traversing the at least one stitching relationship to decompose at the least one submitted query into at least one sub-query on appropriate models; and

the computer useable program code for directing the at least one sub-query to at least one respective model via at least one source connector to retrieve information from at least one actual source.

18. A system for co-relating multiple functional designs and multiple implementation artifacts of multiple applications with multiple infrastructure components of a target deployment environment for the applications, comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor couple to the memory and operative to;

obtain the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts of the multiple applications;

obtain the multiple infrastructure components of the target deployment environment for the multiple applications;

co-relate the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts of the multiple applications with the multiple infrastructure components of the target deployment environment for the multiple applications, wherein said co-relating comprises;

(i) automatically discovering multiple system level dependencies among the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, and

(ii) providing one or more placement directives for deploying the multiple implementation artifacts on the target deployment environment;

generate a multi-layer graph on-demand based on said multiple system level dependencies among the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, wherein nodes of the multi-layered graph comprise the multiple functional designs and the multiple implementation artifacts and the multiple infrastructure components, wherein edges of the multiple layered graph comprise the multiple system level dependencies, and wherein said generating comprises incrementally creating, on-demand, the multi-layered graph by resolving one or more queries and fetching one or more items of desired data related to the one or more queries at run-time;

provide at least one stitching relationship among the multiple functional designs, the multiple implementation artifacts, and the multiple infrastructure components;

process at least one submitted query by using information from multiple meta-models by traversing the at least one stitching relationship to decompose at the least one submitted query into at least one sub-query on appropriate models; and

direct the at least one sub-query to at least one respective model via at least one source connector to retrieve information from at least one actual source.